My time away from blogging..

In my last blog post I hinted that something big was happening in my life.. well a few weeks ago I purchases my first house! There were a lot of ups and downs and now that the unpacking is settling down and designing and organizing are starting to vamp up I thought I would come on here and give my first piece of moving advice.

1. When packing candles – Place the candles in a gallon zip lock baggie before you pack them. Why, do you ask? Well, I am a yankee candle lover and have many candles. I had a large jar candle wrapped in a towel. When I unwrapped it (after a bit of a hot summer) the coloring leaked from the jar candle onto the towel. So.. learn from my mistakes. Before you wrap your candles in paper or whatever. First place them in a zip lock baggie so that if they do melt and leak, the wax, color and scent stay in the zip lock baggie and not all over your box contents.

More helpful packing, unpacking and home purchasing tidbits to come!

Changes.. Again

I am sorry for the silence during the last few months but it seems that lately every day brings a different change to my life. Since I last wrote, I went from trying to purchase the house I was living in, to moving out in three weeks and staying with friends while I try to find my/our new home.

It has been a roller coaster of an experience and one with a lot of learning with it. House values, taxes, closing costs, trying to find a place that has everything on your list. On top of it all packing up your home and saying goodbye to a place that you thought you would be living in for a long time.

That in itself has turned into a nightmare. Dealing with a person who has never been a landlord before has turned into a hot mess. It makes me realize that I truly no longer want to rent a house or an apartment. I want a place that I can call my own. That after thirty years will be mine and I have something to show for the money I have put into it.

After some searching, I think I have found three potential new homes. Right now I am just waiting a little bit to see what my future holds before I start to make the final decision and start the bidding process. I am not one to make bets, and this whole process of bidding for a house makes me uneasy. But I am being told that it is all part of the game.

trying to get my groove back

The last time I wrote I was still in FL, I have been back for about two weeks now and the first week was very over whelming. When I first booked my vacation I did not know that it was going to turn into a month in FL so I didn’t think to take a day off after traveling back home.

I arrived back on Tuesday night to a cool house and two very happy boys. At first I didn’t mind because for the last month I had been sweating so being cool was not something I minded. But then I started to get settled and things started to just get piled up. Did you know that if you do not use your washer machine that the parts can dry up and it will leak on you until they are primed again? I didn’t either.

My car, had a swamp in it, because (I believe) my sunroof is leaking and I was trying to play catch up at work. It was just a lot to take in and I couldn’t seem to get my head straight.

One evening I even tried to work on the furnace myself. Me, playing with gas, fire and a furnace. The next day, after an emergency call to the heating company and one fixed thermal couple later I found myself in a warm house and time.

I knew the one thing that would help me get back into the home groove and that would be cooking a good meal in my kitchen. I was going to make risotto! I have been wanting to make it for a year now and I had been afraid of it. But I found an easy recipe on foodnetwork.com and I had picked up a lobster the day before because it was on sale for 5.99 a lb!

I spent the next two hours with my music, my boys and cooking something I have always wanted to try. It was just what I needed to feel back at home.

Craft Project – Chalkboard

While I was working on re-painting the kitchen I thought that it would be a nice touch to add a chalkboard. I know that it is all the latest rage to have it, but it really is a nice touch to have in the kitchen to write down what you need.

So I looked online and saw that others have created chalkboard in a variety of ways; from doing whole walls, fridge doors and cupboard doors. I had one wall that was very blank and long so I thought that having a chalkboard in that area would be a nice touch in that space.

The first thing I needed to do was to find what to use for my chalkboard surface. So one day after work I headed over to Salvation Army (because I am a girl on a budget). I was lucky that day and for seven dollars bought a picture in a frame and two other picture frames that I needed for other photos.

I thought this would be perfect because it was just the right size for the space I had picked out.

What I needed for this project:

• picture in frame
• painters tape
• chalkboard paint
• spray paint
• yellow paint
• buttons
• newspapers

I layered newspapers over the glass of the picture frame and then spray painted the frame white. Which is what I thought I wanted for the frame color.

I then removed the newspaper and taped the inside of the frame with the painters tape so that I could then use the chalkboard paint. I did two layers of paint.

Once I completed that I hung it on the wall but realized that it was just too much white. So I then painted the frame yellow to match the yellow in my kitchen. Once it was dried I took a scrub to “rough up” the picture frame to make it look a bit more lived in.

To give the chalkboard a bit more character and give it some texture I decided to add buttons to it that would bring in the different colors in the kitchen. When this is done one of the buttons will hold the chalk to the board.

This was a fun project that I think brought some character to my kitchen and gave it a modern twist.

Project – Kitchen Make Over – Update

I started this project a few months ago and I have slowly been working on it ever since. Yesterday, I finished the project. While I am tired, I am so proud of myself that I finished this project on my own.

This color combination is my dream kitchen. I think that there are some details that can be added to some of the white spaces.

I wish that this project hadn’t taken so long, but I found that it was much more painful than I would have thought.

One of the photos is of a mini project that I did which is a chalkboard, which I will post about later.

Project – Kitchen Make Over

One of the things I have decided to do to make the house more of “my” own is to paint the kitchen. Originally, it was mock stained two different colors. I have always wanted a yellow and white kitchen with a lot of light and plants. Last year, I painted the walls a creamy yellow. Two weekends ago I started to paint the walls.

Slowly I will be working on the kitchen as I decided on what to do. I am debating adding a chalk board “area” for notes in one section by the door and I am also going to push my boundaries and I will be painting the cupboard walls white and the doors the same yellow as the walls to break up some of the white.

I will post pictures as I go.

Consumer Alert- During this project I purchased a variety of painting supplies. One of them was for blinds because I have folding doors. This was a purchase that I did not need to make. A small paint brush did a much better job.